What's for Dinner?

By the end of the day, we all want to stay home for dinner.  Solomon, especially, likes to be in the apartment rather than in a restaurant.

Sometimes a fellow just wants to relax.

Dinner is a bit of a challenge because of the limited cooking space, and utensils. As my friend Karen Jones would say, "This is a one ass kitchen."  It's also a clean up as you go kitchen since I have to wash and  reuse utensils, plates and bowls frequently.

The pot on the left works well for noodles and rice.  I've got two fry pans like the one of the right.  The second pan doubles as a lid.  We are lucky to have two gas burners.  Some apartments only have one burner.

One small cutting board, two dull knives, a dull vegetable peeler and one wooden spatula. What more does a home cook need to prepare a gourmet dinner?

The plastic strainer works for washing veggies and draining noodles. All dinners are eaten out of the four bowls on the left. Inside the strainer are a few plastic bowls, one of which works well for fruit salad.  I use the plates for cut up veggies waiting for their turn in the pan.

  Since David is our vegetarian, I try to cook something that all four of us will enjoy.  My dinners tend to be vegetables and noodles, or vegetables and rice. Thanks to Carissa Roth, I cooked up some tofu that was pretty tasty.  But, I can't really plan what I'm going to cook until I have the ingredients.

What shall we have for dinner tonight?

I bought this fruit at the traditional market this morning.  Fruit salad will be on the menu.

This will be the vegetable course.  Check out the baby corn - the lady was husking it while I watched.

There's nothing too adventurous in my selection of veggies today.  The big white thing on the left is daikon radish. Notice the size of the carrot.

I've got all day to figure out what what to make with the ingredients that I've got.

I went out to get some ginger and garlic to add flavor, and why not throw in some mushrooms?

Guess what?  What I thought was zucchini turned out to be cucumber.  We topped off our bowls with these deliciously fresh cukes.

Here's the final product.  I boiled up some noodles, tossed them with sesame oil and we scooped the veggies on top.  It was a pretty tasty meal.

Traditional Markets

In addition to playing with Soup, we spend a large portion of each day planning what we are going to eat.

We go to Wellcome for our basics, like toilet paper, cleaning supplies, beer and ice cream.  However, we have discovered that traditional markets are much more fun.  In addition to buying interesting fruits and vegetables we have the opportunity to use the Taiwanese dollar, and to try to communicate with our smattering of Mandarin.

The Taiwan New Dollar (TWD) system is very straight forward.:  The coins from bottom to top are one dollar, 5 dollars, 10 dollars and 50 dollars.  Next, move on to the paper money - 100, 500 and 1000.  We don't have to worry about cents.  One TWD equals $0.03

The traditional markets are scattered throughout the city.  Vendors sell their goods starting early in the morning, and close up shop when they sell out. Some vendors have stalls that are part of a building, some have a spot with tables that they set up, some sell off the back of their scooters, and others put down a tarp with their selection of produce displayed on the ground.  It appears very informal, but I'm pretty sure there is a system.

This vendor is always in the same spot, but everything is set up on milk cartons.

The front carton has bamboo shoots, and right behind it is daikon radish.

Right behind the vegetables is a shop selling clothing.

The fish always looks very fresh, and it never smells.  It makes me wonder about American grocery stores which often have a fishy smell in the fish department - and it's never good.

Squid in the middle. Crab right behind it.

I bought oranges, kiwi and dragon fruit.  I tried to tell the vendor that I wanted dragon fruit with red meat, not the fruit with white meat.  I wonder if I bought what I wanted?

Oh yes!  I got the red.  It's juicy, and slippery.  In texture it's similar to kiwi.

Voila, fruit salad from the traditional market.